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By Stephanie William, French Guiana
Although my family is from French Guiana, South America, I was born in France. Generally, people from my country go to work in France to give their children a better life and education. My mother, especially, wanted her children (my two brothers and me) to be born in France.
Mother suffered from depression. I recall my parents arguing and my mother crying alone at night. She would come into my room, hold me in her arms and cry. Once she was hospitalized for a whole year. During that time my father placed me, the youngest, and one of my brothers in a foster home. When Mother was able to come home, we were reunited as a family. We had lived together for about a year when my mother died. Father had gone back to French Guiana and hoped Mother would follow him, but she did not want to leave France. While my brothers and I were at school one day, my mother took her life by overdosing on pills. I was eight years old at the time.
My brothers and I were traumatized. I felt a tremendous guilt for not showing love to my mother. I had always said I loved my father more than I loved my mother because he was strong. I began to think if I had shown more love to her, she may not have died.
After mother’s death, Father took us children back to Guiana. He soon remarried. My life changed drastically after that. Our stepmother did not like us and taught us there was no God. I agreed with her because God had taken my mother from us. (A lady told me that it was God who had taken her.) I kept wondering if that was the God my mother told us about, the One who healed the sick and fetched the lost lamb. She had taught us to pray to Him. But Mother had died. How could a loving God let my mother die? I stopped going to catechism and no longer believed the Bible stories and teachings I had learned from Mother and the church.
During my school years I felt forsaken and empty. My stepmother didn’t take care of us; neither did my father. He thought caring for children was a woman’s job. He had remarried to give his orphaned children a stepmother. However, she did not want to care for us, so we felt lost and alone. At school I envied the children whose parents loved them and encouraged them to succeed at school.
The death of my mother was very deep in my heart. It lasted throughout my youth. I was always alone; I couldn’t make friends, so I always stayed apart from everyone. I grew up like this, listening to music behind a closed door.
I was fortunate to attend high school, college, and then three years of university to study electronic engineering. Students in my country get involved in boy-girl sexual relationships. I got involved in this lifestyle as well. I had my boyfriends, first one then another while living in the dormitory. One side of the dormitory was for the young men, the other side was for the girls. When we met together there was alcohol, sex and many other things. A student without God, who is not strong in character, cannot resist. I did as everyone else did. I loved to dance and to play. Often I was the first one to say, “Let’s go dancing. Let’s go play.”
During the first two years at the university I did an internship with an electric company. There I met a couple of Christians. The young couple was just back from their honeymoon. The man was always singing in the office. One day I asked him what he was singing. He told me he was singing Christian songs. He said if I wanted to hear the gospel I could come to the meetings they attend. I told him I would see.
The man’s wife, who worked in the lab, was much more persuasive. “You must come,” she said. “You really need to meet Christ. Your life will be totally changed. Promise me you will come.” I promised to come but got very busy, so it was some time before I went.
The speaker was from the U.S.A. He talked about the creation of the world. After the message we were free to ask questions. I tried to refute (argue with) the pastor’s words with my questions, but he answered all of them. At the end the pastor prayed for me, laying his hand on my head. When he prayed I felt something special in my heart; a special warmth began to burn in me. From that day my life changed. I had tried other religions, even Buddhism, but that night I decided to follow Christ.
I stopped the boys, the dancing and playing and started reading the Bible. I kept going to the meetings and kept reading my Bible. I started to understand many things. I was always asking the pastor a lot of questions.
Then something came clearly to my mind. I was in sin and I needed to leave my sins. I asked God to forgive my sins and cleanse me in the blood of Jesus. At every meeting the pastor would ask the new people if they wanted to invite Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to be Savior and Lord of their lives. I answered yes every time he asked that question, but I was still making mistakes.
I met a guy from another country who said he was the son of a pastor. I was pleased because I thought this was from God. I went with him and we had an affair. I didn’t realize that this was the devil’s trap and I fell into it. I didn’t tell my pastor, but the Holy Spirit spoke to him. Pastor asked me what had happened. When I told him he said, “You can’t have an affair when you are a Christian.”
“I’m sorry, Pastor,” I replied. “I didn’t know.” He told me I was living in sin and if we did not marry, then I had to leave the situation. He said that we are to live clean lives as Christians, so I quit the relationship. Later I learned the boy was smoking and drinking. I saw him on a bike one day; he was kissing another man. Some time later he came to my door and knocked violently. He insisted that I open the door. My pastor and his wife took me to their house for three days to keep me from this young man. He finally left our area and I never saw him again. This incident caused me to commit myself more strongly to the Lord because I saw that there are traps in life for the Christian. I read my Bible more so I could know the Word of God, obey it and keep growing in Christ.
After quite some time, the things that deeply hurt me in life came to mind. I forgot my past when I first came to Christ and was spending a lot of time in the Word and in prayer. It was like I turned the page and didn’t want to think about all the hurts. I didn’t want to think of my mother’s suicide or the lack of genuine love from my stepmother. A big part of my hurt was not feeling any care from my father. However, when you engage with Jesus, you can’t hide your past. Now I was compelled to face the things that hurt me so deeply. I began to experience both repentance and forgiveness. I had repented of my sins, but I still felt the guilt for my mother’s death until I accepted God’s forgiveness. I also experienced God’s forgiveness for my past lifestyle. I have learned to receive forgiveness and to forgive those who have failed me. No matter what will surface from my past, I know God will forgive and heal my heart. He said that He is the God that heals us. (See Jeremiah 30:17 NIV. “But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds....”)
During my final year at the university I was offered a good job at an electric company. The manager was searching for a new graduate to manage a team for the company. She chose me and offered me the position. At the same time, God was speaking to my heart. I was sure that He wanted me to be a teacher. I chose the will of God. This meant I had to do one more year of university.
After graduation, a teaching position opened up to me, but it was not to teach electronics. I taught math, science, mechanics and industrial arts. I was 22 when I began to teach. The students were between the ages of 15 and 22! This is not unusual in my country. When you teach teenagers you have many problems. Teens are rebellious and reject authority. I was very young and a woman, so sometimes I faced a lot of opposition. It was very difficult, but I prayed much and the Lord helped me.
During the preparations for a two-month evangelistic campaign at my church, I noticed a young man I did not know. I had been baptized in the church two years before, so I knew everyone that attended. I learned that the young man, Enrico William, was a cousin of one of the girls and that he was called to be a pastor. During the two months of the campaign, our youth group prayed together, worked together and played together. We got to know one another well.
The pastor’s wife came to me one day to tell me that someone was interested in marrying me. So I had some preparation for a proposal. One day as we were returning from working in the field the youth group had planted, Enrico asked me to marry him. We decided to wait until he had done his one-year military service and found employment. A year and a half after the proposal, we were married.
God has blessed our marriage with four living children. One baby died during delivery. All of my children were born by caesarean section surgery, so we offer special thanks to God for our family.
Our pastor could see Enrico had God’s call on his life, so he invited him to take an overseas preaching trip with him to an African country. Enrico is convinced that country is where we should serve the Lord as a family. We began our preparation by going to England to study English. Now we are in America enrolled in a Bible college to study the Word of God.
My heart is at peace with this new leading in our lives. Although God is still perfecting me and working in my life, my heart burns with the desire to share the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, with those who do not yet know Him. I long to see God change lives and heal their hurt and wounded hearts even as He did mine.
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